dnl	$OpenBSD: xfer,v 1.48 2015/06/10 06:38:40 jasper Exp $
Installation is supported from several media types, including:

	CD-ROM
	FFS partitions
	HTTP

Not all methods are supported on all SPARC Systems and some of them
work only with the floppy or the miniroot installation.

If you have the OpenBSD CD-ROM distribution (and a CD-ROM drive), you may be
able to boot from it, or from the supplied bootable CD-ROM mini image.
However, not all SPARC systems support booting from CD-ROM, and the current
boot image is only known to work on sun4c and sun4m architecture workstations.
If you can boot from the CD-ROM, you are home free and can proceed to the
installation steps.  If not, you will need to do some setup work to prepare
a bootable image: either a floppy, hard drive, or compatible net boot
server.

In addition to the bootable image, you also need to consider how to
access the binary distribution sets to actually install the system.

Although you can access the distribution sets directly from the CD-ROM or
from one of the FTP mirrors over the internet, you may wish to transfer
the sets to a local FTP server, or copy them to a partition on the target
system's disk.

OpenBSDXferCDROM

OpenBSDXferFloppyFromDOS

OpenBSDXferFloppyFromUNIX

Creating a bootable hard disk using SunOS, Solaris or other Un*x-like system:

	If you don't have a floppy drive you can copy the floppy
	installation image "floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs" or the miniroot "miniroot{:--:}OSrev.fs"
	onto the hard disk you intend to boot on.  Traditionally, the
	way to do this is to use dd(1) to place the bootable filesystem
	image in the "swap" partition of the disk (while running in
	single user mode), and then booting from that partition.

	Using the "b" partition allows you to boot without overwriting
	any useful parts of the disk; you can also use another partition,
	but don't use the "a" or "c" partition without understanding
	the disk label issues described below under "incompatible systems".

	This requires that you be running SunOS, Solaris, OpenBSD, or NetBSD,
	which have a compatible view of SunOS disk labels and partitions.

	Use the dd(1) utility to copy the file to the hard drive.
	The command would likely be, under SunOS:
		dd if=floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rsd0b bs=36b
				- or -
		dd if=miniroot{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rsd0b bs=36b
	and under Solaris:
		dd if=floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s1 bs=36b
				- or -
		dd if=miniroot{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s1 bs=36b

	The blocksize is arbitrary as long as it's a multiple of 512 bytes
	and within the maximum supported by the driver, i.e. bs=126b may
	not work for all cases.  Again, device/partition names may vary,
	depending on the OS involved.

	If you are preparing the hard drive on an incompatible system or
	don't care about the hard disk contents, you can also install the
	bootable image starting at the beginning of the disk. This lets
	you prepare a bootable hard-drive even if don't have a working
	operating system on your SPARC, but it is important to understand
	that the bootable image installed this way includes a "disk label"
	which can wipe out any pre-existing disk labels or partitioning for
	the drive.

	The floppy image is used only for booting, and can be placed in
	a partition that will be overwritten during the install process,
	since it actually runs off a ram-disk image in the kernel.  In
	contrast the miniroot is a normal unix root filesystem and you
	must place it in a partition that WILL NOT BE OVERWRITTEN until
	you've completed the installation process.

	To copy the floppy image to the whole disk, overwriting labels:
	Under SunOS:
		dd if=floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rsdXc bs=36b
	and under Solaris:
		dd if=floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rdsk/c0tXd0s2 bs=36b

	Two notes - X should be replaced by the unit number of the target
	disk, which is most likely *not* the disk/partition that's your
	current root partition.  Again names may vary depending on the
	OS involved.  Second, after doing this, the disklabel will be one
	that would be appropriate for a floppy, i.e. one partition of 2880
	blocks, and you'll probably want to change that later on.

	To copy the floppy image to the hard disk, preserving SunOS,
	Solaris, NetBSD or OpenBSD labels:
	Under SunOS:
		dd if=floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rsdXc bs=1b skip=1 seek=1
	and Solaris:
		dd if=floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rdsk/c0tXd0s2 \
		    bs=1b skip=1 seek=1

	You need to be sure that your version of dd(1) supports the
	skip and seek operands, otherwise you can try a technique like:

		dd if=/dev/rsdXc of=/tmp/label bs=1b count=1
		dd if=floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rsdXc bs=36b
		dd if=/tmp/label of=/dev/rsdXc bs=1b count=1

	In either case, you've created a situation where the disk label
	and the filesystem information don't agree about the partition
	size and geometry, however the results will be usable.

Creating a network bootable setup using SunOS or other Un*x-like system:

	The details of setting up a network bootable environment vary
	considerably, depending on the network's host.  Extract the
	OpenBSD diskless(8) man page from the man{:--:}OSrev.tgz distribution
	set or see the copy on the OpenBSD web page.  You will also
	need to reference the relevant man pages or administrators guide
	for the host system.
	
	Basically, you will need to set up reverse-arp (rarpd) and boot
	parameter (rpc.bootparamd) information and make the OpenBSD
	bootblock, kernel/miniroot partition, and a swap file available
	as required by the netboot setup.


OpenBSDXferPrelude

OpenBSDXferFFS
